STARTING SALARIES

Reflecting an improved, but still tight, job market, salary offers are up minimally this year for graduates of the Class of '94 who are heading into the workplace with a bachelor's degree.

Starting salaries averaged from the $20,000-$23,000 range for liberal arts graduates to the $34,000-plus range for most engineering majors, according to college placement offices.

Generally, the offers are only 1 percent to 2 percent above the salaries offered to last year's graduating class. In a few cases, such as nursing, salary offers are lower than last year.

Here is how the offers stack up for graduates with bachelor's degrees in various disciplines, as well as for MBAs. The figures are based on data collected from 378 colleges and universities by the College Placement Council, which represents college career counselors and corporate recruiters.

-- ENGINEERS: Engineering majors continue to command the highest salary offers among undergraduates. But in most specialties, the offers are little more than 1 percent above last year. Electrical engineers received offers averaging $34,712; mechanical engineers $34,949; and civil engineers, $29,683. The highest offers were made to chemical engineers, averaging $39,413, down 0.2 percent from last year. Offers to petroleum engineers averaged $38,192, down 0.5 percent.

-- BUSINESS: Salary offers for most business majors were up significantly from last year. For accounting majors, offers averaged $28,581, up 4 percent; for economics and finance graduates, $27,801, a 3.3 percent gain; and business administration majors, $25,193, up 2.6 percent.

-- LIBERAL ARTS: At the lower end of the salary spectrum, offers to graduates in the humanities and social sciences were mixed. Sociology graduates received offers averaging $22,871, up 3.6 percent. Offers to English majors averaged $21,581, a 1.4 percent gain. On the down side, psychology majors received offers averaging $20,270, 1.5 percent less than last year, while history graduates were offered $23,498, a 1.4 percent decline.

-- HEALTH: With the exception of nursing, starting salaries in the health-care field rose sharply. Offers to graduates in allied health services were up nearly 8 percent to $31,432. Nursing grads, however, lost ground, with offers averaging $29,747, a 4.2 percent drop. The reasons: The nursing shortage that gave graduates so much leverage in the 1980s has eased and top-paying staff jobs at hospitals have been cut back.

-- MASTER'S IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION: MBA graduates with two to four years of previous work experience attracted offers that were significantly above last year's levels. Those with technical undergraduate degrees received offers averaging $57,271, a 5.5 percent increase. For those with nontechnical undergraduate degrees, offers averaged $53,823, a 9.5 percent jump.

For those without previous work experience, offers were up about 2 percent.

-- Teen-agers who haven't been able to land a summer job shouldn't give up hope. Even though the summer is half over, it's not too late to earn some money or at least gain some valuable experience that will improve your job prospects next summer.

-- START YOUR OWN BUSINESS: It's never too late to go into business for yourself, so long as it's a venture for which you don't have to buy expensive equipment to get started. Besides the obvious, such as baby-sitting and mowing lawns, try to solicit business for odd seasonal jobs, such as weeding, washing windows, painting fences, trimming hedges and waxing cars. With many families headed out of town for summer vacation, ask your neighbors if they'd be interested in having you water their plants, cut the grass and pick up their mail and newspapers while they're away.

-- CHECK BUSINESSES AGAIN: Although most businesses did their summer hiring months ago, it may pay to check neighborhood businesses again to see whether their needs have changed. It's not uncommon for a small business to have mid-summer openings because of employee turnover or because business has been heavier than originally expected.

-- LEARN NEW SKILLS: Consider using the rest of the summer to learn new skills or gain experience that will help improve your job prospects next summer. For example, if you'd like to be a pool lifeguard, find out if lifesaving certification classes are now being held. Or if you hope to land an office job next summer, look for a volunteer organization that needs clerical help this summer.

-- CALENDAR WATCH: For individuals who employ baby-sitters, housekeepers or other household help, Aug. 1 is the deadline for filing employment tax reports for the second quarter of 1994 with the IRS. Under federal law, people who pay a domestic worker $50 or more a quarter are supposed to report the wages and pay Social Security tax on behalf of the worker on Form 942, "Employer's Quarterly Tax Return for Household Employees."